Saturday, January 22, 2011

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Criminal charges have been filed against Charles Quinn, the 42-year-old man who allegedly fired a high-powered pellet gun at sheriff’s deputies before they returned fire. Quinn faces six felony charges — three counts of assault on a police officer, one count of second degree robbery, one of assault with the personal use of a deadly weapon and resisting an executive officer, and one misdemeanor count of brandishing a replica gun.

Booking photo of Quinn taken in Florida, October 2009

Prosecutor Mary Barron has been assigned to the case. “We’re waiting to see when he’s able to appear in court,” said Barron, who didn’t want to comment further on the case because she had just received the reports. It could be a while because Quinn is still in serious condition at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, according to hospital spokesperson Janet O’Neill.

Quinn apparently approached a group of young men in Goleta on Saturday, January 15 asking for change, before pulling out a pellet gun and shooting at two of them. He has a history sprinkled with run-ins with law enforcement, from Key West, Florida, to Santa Monica and Ventura.

He was given a fine of $327 for failure to obey signals in Ventura County in 1995. In 2009, Quinn was arrested at Higgs Beach in Key West on a warrant out for his arrest, though it is unclear what for. At the time he was carrying a backpack and a guitar, both items he was said to have been carrying with him in Goleta on Saturday.

The apparently well-traveled Quinn has had problems with law enforcement elsewhere as well, though authorities in those places haven’t responded to The Independent‘s requests for information. Quinn had never previously been arrested in Santa Barbara County.